Sánchez and Feijóo will face off in a TV debate on Thursday, 19 November

Date, venue and moderator

The Academy of Television and of the Sciences and Arts of the Audiovisual will host the face-to-face debate between Pedro Sánchez, the PSOE candidate for the presidency of the government, and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP candidate, on Thursday, 19 November. The encounter will be staged in Plató A of Madrid Content City, the facilities of Secuoya Content Group in Tres Cantos, and María Casado, the Academy's president, will moderate it. The Academy announced the arrangement on Friday, 13 November, after meeting representatives of the PSOE and the PP and the Comité de Dirección Ejecutiva de los Debates. The date first considered, Monday, 16 November, was dropped because organizing the event with so little margin proved difficult.

Format and running order

The two parties agreed on five thematic blocks in a fixed order: housing, economy and taxation, social policy and public services, the fight against corruption and democratic renewal, and migration and foreign policy. A draw decided that Feijóo will open the debate and Sánchez will close it, while the content of the exchanges between those two moments will depend on the candidates themselves. The Academy also plans to provide an institutional signal that broadcasters interested in airing the debate can use, as it did in 2008, 2011, 2015, 2016 and 2019. The Academy's statement stressed its neutrality in hosting the event.

“The Academy of Television has always been a meeting point and a neutral space for debate and the exchange of ideas.”

Who sat at the table

For the PP, Miguel Tellado, the party's secretary general, and Luis de la Matta, its press chief, attended the meeting. The PSOE sent Rebeca Torró, its secretary of organization and general campaign coordinator, and Borja Cabezón, its secretary of electoral action. The meeting settled the running order, the television coverage and the subjects the candidates will address. Both parties' representatives agreed on the order of the blocks at that meeting.

Campaign context and the laSexta debate

The general election on 29 November opens a campaign that began on Friday, 13 November, with more than 38,700,000 eligible voters. The reflection day falls on Saturday, 28 November. Before the Academy debate, laSexta will host a four-party debate on Friday, 13 November at 21:30, moderated by Ana Pastor, with Carlos Cuerpo (PSOE), Juan Bravo (PP), José María Figaredo (Vox) and Pablo Bustinduy (Frente Amplio). Participants may bring one adviser each and will not be allowed mobile phones. Pastor described the aim of the format:

“We intend for this to be a debate with concrete proposals, away from the noise.”